I had been trying for several weeks now to revisit the gardens at RHS Harlow Carr on the outskirts of Harrogate. Checking through my diary I cannot believe that my last visit was the on the 20th September, unfortunately due to work commitments I missed all the bright, vibrant colours of the summer flowers, let’s hope next year I can plan my diary a little better. 

Today I had a mid-morning meeting in the town after which we headed over to the gardens and brunch at ‘Bettys’ restaurant, though post pandemic has not been possible, only because I wasn’t prepared to queue for forty-five minutes.

It was a cloudy and overcast day with the threat of rain late afternoon, not my favourite kind of weather but there is always plenty of colour and lots to draw your attention at Harlow Carr, no matter what time of year you choose to visit. 

We arrived late morning and headed straight into the coffee shop for a takeaway coffee and biscuit before our walk around the site. The café had a lovely autumnal display in the main window, made up of tempting items which could be purchased inside the shop.

The outside temperature was around 12C as we set off on our walk around the gardens. with just a very light breeze. The ground staff have been busy preparing the site for the ‘Winter Glow event’ which will be running from the 17th November through to the end of December, with electric cables and waterproof connection boxes running along and through the borders.

We followed our usual route passing the ‘Learning Centre’ and ‘teaching gardens’ before arriving at the sunken ‘Edwardian Garden’. It was good to see work continuing on the assembly of a footbridge/walkway, across the corner of the ‘QM lake’, the last time we were here the steel stanchions had been set into the lake, and today they were lifting and securing sections of the footbridge in situ on those stanchions. 

From the lake we followed the ‘Streamside trail’ leading to the ‘old bath house’, although it was quite a dull and gloomy morning, the colours of the trees along the banks of the stream, including the Japanese maples added a sense of theatre on this gloomy autumnal morning. The foliage and shades of candy red, orange and citrus yellow standing out against their gnarly twisting trunk shapes. The saturated yellow, dissected leaves the of Acers gives it the look of a tree of yellow feathers, and Acer palmatum ‘Ōsakazuki’ has vivid red foliage which brightens up the dullest of mornings.

With the huge amounts of rain we have been having recently the stream was flowing at quite a rate, certainly faster than on our last visit. On reaching the ‘old bath house’ we had a good browse inside at the wonderful displays of arts and crafts and made a start on our Christmas shopping! On leaving the house we doubled back following the streamside path but this side on the other side, stopping every now and then to admire the autumnal colours, on reaching the ‘Geoffrey Smith’ memorial stone and footbridge, we headed up the slope to ‘the Sandstone rock garden’. The purple foliage of Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’ had turned a fiery red, which complemented the hot oranges of the Japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’. On the water’s edge, Cyperus longus fades into beige, while Pontederia cordata continues to stand upright. This is a beautiful area of the garden, and I am sure missed by many of the visitors. 

Work is still continuing in re defining the main borders and weather permitting by next Spring should be nicely planted. 

I’m hoping for some sunshine on my next visit as the autumnal colours are absolutely beautiful at the moment.